Braille is the language of visually impaired readers whose vision is impaired to the extent that they cannot read printed material. Reading Braille relies on the sense of touch, where reading is done by running a finger over a combination of characters. This method was invented by Louise Braille (1809-1852) in 1821 at the age of 12. Louise Braille became visually impaired at the age of 3 and developed this method to enable him to live equally with the people around him.
A typical Braille character is comprised of six raised pins or bumps in a Braille cell grid having three rows high and two columns wide. Different combinations of the six pins represent different characters. In other applications, a Braille cell may be comprised of 8 or more Braille dots arranged in a grid four or more rows high and two columns wide. For example, the word “hello” in a typical six pin Braille cell is shown below.                        
Refreshable Braille Displays (RBDs) are devices that allow visually impaired readers to review work or read material, which an enabled reader can do on a computer screen. Refreshable Braille Displays range in terms of the number of characters presented on one line, but most standard displays can present in the range of from 40 to 80 cell characters.
Unfortunately, many visually-impaired citizens around the country are forced to use the traditional audio device method to review work or read material due to the scarce supply and high cost of RBD's. This problem stems from the fact that the Braille displays currently on the market are very expensive to produce and maintain. These devices typically utilize a dedicated Piezoelectric crystal actuator for each raised character dot in a cell grid. These Piezoelectric actuators expand when an electric potential is applied to them, producing a change in the mechanism leading to a protruding bump. Repairs are also expensive and inconvenient because they require the user to relinquish their unit for the duration of the repair and because of the complexity and intricacy of the Piezoelectric actuators of the RBD unit itself.
Improvement in such devices producing computer-refreshable Braille text for tactile reading by the blind and visually impaired could thus be utilized thereby broadening accessibility to computer services such as electronic books, e-mail and other network access, and general computer use. Improvements in cost and mechanical reliability must be attained in order to facilitate more widespread use of refreshable Braille devices. Thus, there is a need in the art for a refreshable Braille display device which can reduce the overall cost to the consumer and still accurately display and refresh a set of Braille characters, occupy less space than existing RBDs, be easy to clean, be tactilely and aesthetically pleasing, and produce no objectionable noise.